Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

When I was a kid, I played a lot of video games and generally listened to oldies music while I played. A few years later, I became a music junky and started buying CDs, but at that time, radio stations that my peers were not listening to were perfect. I have some constant, nagging (too strong a word) memories. There are specific memories that stand out. One of these took place on a stormy summer night. I was listening to oldies radio and playing Batman: The Video Game , which I had rented from Park Video. I rented so many games over the years, until after high school, when I virtually stopped playing. To be fair, playing the video game is a memory that should not have stuck with me, but it is there, a fragment of more innocent times.  My memory is hazy, and I don't remember any of the songs, but I do remember bits and pieces of the game. Batman could leap from wall to wall, and one of the weapons was a batarang. It was an average sidescroller, but it was not as hard as Battletoa...

I rub my sleepy eyes and clean the last dishes. My week at the cabin is over, and I slowly pack the car. I'll be back in a few days when I will have to say bye for another year. The river is low again, but the grass is green, and the day is cool. More rain is in the forecast. I take a deep breath, lock the door, and move on.

While tidying up the cabin by washing the dishes and sweeping the floors before everyone leaves, I reflect on another year. We are all getting older and tamer. There are fewer altercations and more hugs along with earlier bedtimes and more snoring. We awake earlier each year, and people leave sooner on Sunday.

Early Morning coffee in the kitchen. Jim is making eggs.  I hear a clutch of conversation when I wake up. Peter, Donny, Josh, Matt, Joe. I let the discussions hang. I get up to take my morning walk, skirting other hungover zombies.

The creek is high, appearing more like a pond each year. Past it there is a dark patch of woods. Birch and Spruce mingle with Slender Ash. Big Rock looks inviting amidst stalwart pines. 

The cold rain is threatening to put out the fire. Fortunately, the weather won't stop us from breathing. When the sun comes out, I'm going in the river.

The river runs through here, doncha know. I can't hear it over the sound of the space heater. This summer is a cold one. 

Cabin Day One: Ask the Turtle Walking through Yarrow and daisies in the ditch as cars fly by I  spy a dead Snapping Turtle next to an anthill And a Subway cup tossed carelessly from a passing car. The ferns are tall and verdant next to scarred popple trees,  the sky blue with scattered, wispy cirrus clouds,  and the air fragrant. Wisconsin summer, colder than some yet still beautiful.  I raise you your harsh, snowy winters  and ask for more temperance. Ask the turtle who hides under ice and hollow log what she wants.  More summer or a buttercup. Something to eat and the sun on her shell. Give me more days like this one, content in my carapace,  walking through green, even as I shield myself  from speeding cars on County Road W that never slow down.

I have been moving into our new house for what seems like days. First, we had to paint each room and remove the carpet, and then we have slowly been moving our stuff over the past week. Whenever I move, I think about getting rid of some of my records or books because of the effort of moving them. Of course, this never happens, and I find myself moving more each time, constantly swearing and cursing at myself for my collection.  I generally move them by myself so that no one else will have to suffer. I take the records off my shelf, put them in plastic storage containers, and then lug them to my car only to lug them out again. When I am done, my arms are black and blue from bruises. These deep bruises will turn yellow and take weeks to heal. When I move books in town, I have switched to smaller boxes and more trips to make it easier, but I have not found a better way to move vinyl. I started using large milk crates, but they beat my arms up as much and took more time. I ended up set...

Late Night with Conan O'Brien first aired on September 13, 1993. I'm not sure when I first tuned in, but it must have been shortly after that, and it hooked me immediately. It appealed to me in ways David Letterman and Jay Leno did not. The dynamic between Andy Richter, Max Weinberg, and Conan, along with the strange skits that felt more like the odd, hallucinatory sketches from The Kids in the Hall than those of his late-night rivals, sucked me in. I raved about it to my friends who were much more interested in David Letterman. Leno was not cool to many of us because his jokes never felt like they were for us. Letterman was hipper because of his biting satire and relatability, while the newcomer Conan was tentative and unsure of himself as a host. His self-deprecating jabs and vulnerability gave him a different type of comedic edge that appealed to the underdog and the also-ran. I started taping my favorite skits and showing them to friends. I have hours of VHS tape of Conan...

Since I moved to Arkansas a few years ago, I have realized how much the pollen affects me and how ubiquitous it can be. I have always gotten sick every year when the trees start blooming, but in Arkansas, it is so much worse. The pine trees and many other plants start blooming, and I find myself a sick mess. My ears are plugged, my head is stuffy, and my body aches. When I first encountered these symptoms a couple of years ago, I thought I had the flu, but friends informed me that it was just the pollen. The trees are beautiful, with their needles appearing ever greener through the haze, but yellow pollen covers the roads, vehicles, and pretty much anywhere else it can land. A blanket of yellow clogs the air, and it is even visible in the water that pools in drains and puddles along the muddy ground. When I return to Wisconsin, other blooming polliniferous plants will hit me again, so my head will remain a mess.  Of course, this haze cuts down my productivity, and I struggle to cat...

               Chadwick Spartan's head was ringing as he prepared himself for another day of running the machines. He was in charge of machine number 16, the scrambler, and he was sick to death of the smell of stale popcorn, fried food, and the sickly vomit smell of each sick kid who threw up on the ride after eating cotton candy or elephant ears. He was plain sick of working on the machines, listening to the tired banter of the other carnies as they played drinking games long into the night or discussed the new tattoos they were thinking of getting. His life had become a cliché; when he left home after high school, he fell for the idea that the carnival life would be adventure and fun. He would see the world. He was so damn naïve. Instead, he found himself bored on the road, wishing for all the world that he had settled down with some high school sweetheart, worked at the factory, or even gone to trade school.       ...

A dream discovered in fresh water waves Under the surface with billowing ochre weeds A deep, green curtain hiding the flutter of perch Perhaps, a tiny bluegill or larger pumpkinseed Safe under covers, hiding from the wolfish fish Predator and prey in endless dashes Never upsetting the murk I lay amidships over the side of the canoe staring for hours My father's strong arms casting and casting Nary a fish made it over its sheltering sides Glittering water on the belly in rivulets  The bright orange sun beating from behind cumulus clouds On the shimmering surface of the shrinking lake. I shielded my eyes and kept watching for fish Taking a break to read my Hardy Boys book The Mummy Case , I think it was, its lurid cover as natural as the fish below on my young imagination My father handed me a bottle of Coke, cold in styrofoam wrap I remember that first drink, cold and tickling Traveling home in his red 1984 Ford F-150  I turned the last pages of my mystery book  looking fo...

I have only experienced recurring dreams once. When I was a kid, and remembered my dreams with more frequency, and in greater detail, I had a dream that kept coming back for a few weeks. It was very detailed, and in hindsight, I'm not sure if it was exactly the same, but it had many of the same features. I  remember being confused that I kept having it because it never had before. One funny thing about memory is that you believe something happened in a specific way, and it might not have. Remembering a dream is even more challenging because nobody but you remembers it, so you cannot ask them if it really happened that way.  Visually, the dream was striking, memorable, and very strange. It was like I was trapped in a Scooby-Doo episode, except the animation was crisper and more bizarre than the Hanna-Barbera cartoon. There were two witches that looked like they had escaped from The Wizard of Oz that flitted in and out and a sled race that led me back to the beginning of the dr...